1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fluid collector, especially to a fluid collector used for a negative pressure wound therapy system to collect the pus and the infection subjects.
2. Description of the Prior Arts
Fluid collectors are widely used for medical devices to collect the pus and the infection subjects. For different needs, fluid collectors in the same medical device may have different sizes. Since these medical devices need to have detecting units to detect whether the fluid collectors are full, the fluid collectors with different sizes need different detecting parameters. Therefore, once the medical devices use different fluid collectors with different sizes or capacities, the detecting parameters of the medical devices need to be adjusted accordingly. Adjusting detecting parameters involves modifying software and hardware so that adjusting detecting parameters is complicated.
For example, negative pressure wound therapy utilizes wound sheets, soft suction pads, or biocompatible porous materials to attach on the wounds and connect to a vacuum pump. The vacuum pump creates negative pressure in the wound to extract the pus and infection subjects and to draw the healthy tissue fluid so that a moist therapy environment is maintained. Therefore, the blood circulation around the wound is promoted to accelerate wound healing. To provide negative pressure wound therapy, a conventional negative pressure wound therapy system has been developed. The system extracts pus and the infection subjects into the conventional fluid collector. The detecting unit of the system detects the pressure in the conventional fluid collector to determine whether the conventional fluid collector is full. When the conventional fluid collector is full, the system alarms to remind the user to change for an empty fluid collector.
When the patient stays in the hospital, the patient needs not to move frequently so that a large fluid collector is suitable to reduce frequency of changing the conventional fluid collector. When the patient stays at home or goes out, a small fluid collector is suitable to be carried easily. The conventional fluid collectors of different sizes need different system parameters, such that different pressures are reached when the different fluid collectors are full. Therefore, the detecting unit has to detect different values. However, the conventional system does not have devices to adjust the parameters of the detecting unit. Thus, the conventional fluid collectors with different sizes cooperate with different systems with different parameters. Then the patients have to use and get adjusted to different systems when they stay at different places.
In addition, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) repeatedly warns about the negative pressure wound therapy that may cause many adverse effects. The worst problem is accidentally bleeding during the negative pressure wound therapy. Since 2007, the accidental bleeding has caused 12 deaths and 174 injuries. The great parts of those cases occur at home or in a long-term care facility where the patients do not have personal care assistants or nurses around frequently. Once the wound bleeds accidentally, massive hemorrhage may quickly occur via the negative pressure and cause tragedy.
The vacuum pump has to extract the air in the fluid tubes when the negative wound therapy system is operated, and then extracts pus. Even the negative pressure in the system is stable during the therapy, much air may still be released from the wound sheet. Thus, air and liquid are mixed in the fluid tubes of the negative wound therapy system during the negative pressure therapy.
The conventional negative pressure wound therapy systems has a rigid collector connecting to a front end of the vacuum pump to extract the pus and the infection subjects into the rigid collector through the fluid tube. Although the air and the liquid are separated certainly because of the gravity, it is unable to determine whether the air or liquid flows into the rigid collector. Therefore, the conventional negative pressure wound therapy system cannot detect bleeding continuously since it is unable to determine whether the air or liquid flows in the fluid tubes. Then the patients are in danger because the conventional system cannot alarm while massive hemorrhage occurs.
To overcome the shortcomings, the present invention provides a fluid collector to mitigate or obviate the aforementioned problems.